Christmas paper ornament tutorial

Its that time of year (already!) to start thinking about Christmas gifts, decorations, and wrapping. Christmas is already less than 6 weeks away!!!

*gulp*

These paper ornaments make a great addition to any Christmas tree, can be used as a pretty tag or "bow" on the top of a gift, or can be strung together to make a beautiful garland. You can use what you already have available at home and they're so easy to make that it's the perfect afternoon craft project to do with your kids.

Lets get started:

Supplies needed:

* construction paper, scrapbooking paper, or any cardstock weight paper you have at home. You can even glue wrapping paper to a piece of heavy weight paper to make your own unique design!

* scissors

* pencil

* string, twine, or floss (I used baker's twine)

* glue

* juice glass (or a paper punch if you have one which is what I used and makes the process go a little bit faster).

Step 1: Trace 8 circles on your paper using your glass and cut them out (or just punch 8 circles out).

Step 2: Fold each circle in half making sure that the pattern you want to show on the ornament is on the INSIDE of the fold.

Step 3: Glue the backs of each folded circle to another folded circle (making sure that you glue the sides together that you don't want to be seen).

When your finished gluing it looks like this:

Step 4: Tie your string into a hanger by putting a loop at top and a knot at the bottom. This will help ensure that the string doesn't slip through your finished ornament.

Step 4: After you glue all 8 pieces together lay your string down the spine of your ornament, then glue the final two paper ends together to form a circle around your string.

 

Enjoy your beautiful paper ornament!



Layouts

A few more recent layouts to share.

ATC step by step

I recently started to get hooked onto making ATC's (artist trading cards). The definition of ATC straight from Wikipedia is:

Artist Trading Cards (or ATCs) are miniature works of art about the same size as modern baseball cards,[1] or 2 ½ X 3 ½ inches (63 mm X 89 mm),[2] small enough to fit inside standard card-collector pockets, sleeves or sheets.[3] The ATC movement developed out of the mail art movement and has its origins in Switzerland.[4] Cards are produced in various media, including dry media (pencils, pens, markers, etc.), wet media (watercolor, acrylic paints, etc.), paper media (in the form of collage, papercuts, found objects, etc.) or even metals or cloth. The cards are usually traded or exchanged rather than sold.

What's great about them is that they come together quickly, you can try new mixed media techniques out on them without the fear of ruining or wasting a canvas or other large item, and that they really are beautiful miniature pieces of art.

Here's a quick step by step for you:

The ATC below was made using a masking technique which utilized the "trash" from the back of some paper tape and some spray ink. When I separate paper tape from the backing I always save the backing paper to use later for projects just like this.

Step 1: Remove the plastic backing from your paper tape.

Step 2: Wrap it around your ATC and secure with removable tape on back.

Step 3: Spray your ATC with a few different colors of spray ink or mist, then remove the backing.

Step 4: Finish off your ATC.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sharing some layouts

Some recent-ish layouts that were published in Scrapbook News and Review magazine.

:)



Wanna get published in SNR?

Scrapbook News and Review Magazine's Holiday Sampler issue is coming up and you can be in it!

Check out their Holiday Sampler Calls and get your holiday related projects in by November 1, 2010 to be featured in our Holiday Sampler issue which will be debuting on November 28, 2010.

You can send in projects or layouts from past Christmases or get a jump on this Christmas. We just wanna see your creations!

:)

5 minute Halloween frame

Wanna make a cute Halloween decoration for your home but only have 5 minutes to do it? Then this is the frame for you!

Step 1: Gather supplies and decide what size frame you want to fill (I filled an 8 x 10).

Step 2: Tear out 2 book pages from an old book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3: Cut about an inch off of the edge of one of your pages.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Step 4: Adhere the 2 pages together to form one large piece of paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 5: Pick out a large Halloween stamp and stamp your image (I used a foam stamp and acrylic paint but regualr stamps and ink will work just as well.)

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Step 6: Add a few word fetti stickers just under your stamped image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 7: Cut out your picture to fit your frame and hang on your wall. All done!

5 Minute Frame by Andrea Chrupcala Supplies Foam Stamp: 7Gypsies; Stickers: Making Memories; Paint: Making Memories; Other: book pages

Antique frame

I found this frame in the very back corner of an antique shop (buried behind a bunch of other cool frames) on sale for $9.00. Ron and I made something cool with it for the kids (using some 3/16" Eucaboard and door trim)....I'll share it with you as soon as I can get some pics.

:)

Pom-Pom tutorial

Pom-poms are an oldie but goodie and I think they really add a festive feeling to any party decor. You can buy them already made but why do that when you can make them so much cheaper yourself? Homemade pom-poms really are very simple (and inexpensive) to do, here's the step by steps to do it yourself and save a few bucks!

Supplies needed:

8 or 9 sheets of any color tissue paper

6 inches of craft wire
scissors
a couple of feet of twine

Step 1: Accordian fold the tissue paper in 1 1/2 - 2" strips (the folds don't have to be perfect, as you can see my bottom fold is much smaller than the top). You can buy packs of colored tissue paper at Walmart for about 99 cents each.

Step 2: Twist the craft wire in the middle of the tissue paper to secure the folds. (Not shown in the pic: at this stage its also helpful to tie the twine in the middle for hanging purposes, but you can do this step later if you forget like I did).

Step 3: Trim both ends of the tissue paper in points or curves.

Step 4: Fan out the folds.

Step 5: Gently fluff each sheet, one at a time, working from the center outwards. All done!

PS. In the pic above you can see that I trimmed the ends of the white and the light pink in curves and that I did the light green and dark pink in points. I love how it gives them a different look!

A Fall tag

I made this tag for one of the Scrapbook News and Review Fall newsletters and thought I would share the step by step for making it here.

Step 1:
Spray your tag with a few different "fallish" looking colors of mist or spray ink.



Step 2:
Randomly stamp leaves onto your background.



Step 3:
Using a gel medium, adhere various pieces of fiber, crumpled up book text, and fabric to your tag.





Step 4:
Adhere fall leaves then sew the felt letters to your tag using a zig-zag stitch.



Step 5:
Tie two different ribbons in a bow at the top of your tag and clip the ends to form a point. All done!



Supplies Cardstock: Colorbok; Letter Stickers: American Crafts; Leaves: Prima; Ink: Ranger; Spray Ink: EKSuccess; Matte Gel: Golden; Other: book text, ribbon, fabric, fibers, stitching

Bake sale

A few weekends ago the Mom's Club had a bake sale and I donated baggies of homemade chocolate chip cookies (Ronnie's special recipe - which is the BOMB!) and a few mini loaves of zucchini bread.



I had fun baking but I had more fun coming up with a pretty way to decorate the items. I used some craft punches, some pretty patterned paper, book text, cardstock, and baker's twine.

*love*


Now if only the bread, cookies, and brownies would just magically bake themselves whenever I had a craving for one. That would be really awesome. Oh....and some chocolate covered strawberries too.

:)

Chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels

This summer the girls and I did lots of fun stuff in the kitchen, but BY FAR the most fun we had was covering all kinds of stuff with chocolate.

I mean really....is there anything better than random stuff covered in thick delicious chocolate?

Nope, I don't think so either.


When strawberries were at their peak we would do a couple sheets of them...then mow through them that same day! Another fan favorite was pretzels (some with colored sprinkles, some without) as well as bananas. Oh man...bananas were sooooo good.


We played around with different chocolates (I bought the wafers from the craft store, a huge block in a tray from Target, and your run of the mill morsels at the grocery store) and I found that the morsels were my favorite to use. I also played with different melting techniques and found that doing it in small batches in a glass container in the microwave worked best for me. Just don't heat them too long or you make burnt chocolate with a fudgey consistency (and I may or may not have still eaten it on top of some bananas. Don't judge. It was good.)


I can't wait to do this next year with fresh strawberries straight from my garden. Till then....there's always marshmallows, pretzels, and bananas.

:)

A canvas for Steph's room

We recently re-did all 3 of the bedrooms in our house (the master bedroom will get it next year SO HELP ME!!!)

When I say re-did I mean that we pulled up all the carpet (thank goodness), put down wood floors, painted all the trim and doors white, re-painted the ceilings and walls, and bought all new "big kid" accessories for the girls. They both still had the nursery stuff in their rooms from when they were born and at nearly 6 and 9 years old I thought it was time to do something different.

I'll share before and after pics soon.

So when I was accessorizing Steph's room I realized that I needed a little piece of artwork on one of her shelves to really pull it together with the rest of the room.

I'm semi-crafty so I decided to give it a try. Her room is purple and magenta so I made her a small canvas that pulls all the different colors together. Here it is....my very first canvas!








It's not perfect but she loves it and that's all that matters.

:)